Yakitate Japan 11-12

Kungfucius on February 13, 2005 · in Yakitate

Thankfully for Kazuma, Ryou’s threat of taking 5 points off his score was actually a joke as Ryou revealed that there was going to be another preliminary competition to reduce the 57 winners from the first challenge down to 32. But before the start of the competition, several bakers from Pantasia’s various branches came into the competition complaining about not being able to compete. One in particular, Umino Katsou, almost went to the point of consuming his molded bread to be in the competition. But thanks to some coercing by Ken on Ryou, Ryou finally let Katsou participate

Finally, the next preliminary competition start as each of the remaining contestants has to make a butter roll from one of several butters marked A through H. Kazuma, with his lackluster knowledge of butter, randomly chooses the C butter, and many other bakers followed knowing how Kazuma had tied one of St. Pierre’s best bakers in the TV bakeoff a while ago. Unfortunately, Kazuma had picked margarine, which almost proves fatal later. Kawachi however uses his extensive cooking knowledge and is able to pick off butter G as the most proper one to use, and he quickly finds himself as one of the final 32 for choosing the “correct” butter to bake with. Fortunately for Kazuma, Ken and Suwabara manage to notice the special manner that Kazuma goes about in baking his “butter” roll, so Kazuma also manages to make it into the final 32.

Another important fact revealed is that one of Tsukino’s sister, Mizuno, is also competing in the bakeoff, and Ken gives Kazuma and Kawachi some background in how Tsukino is actually an illegitimate child in the family and has seemingly been put in situations to be a failure (i.e. no recognition from her real father and being manager of a low-volume store, while her sisters run high-volume stores). In sort of a rallying fashion, this gives Kazuma and Kawachi some extra inspiration to perform at their best in this bakeoff, and both of them promised themselves to be the top baker once the flour dust has settled.

Strangely enough, there’s a strange baker in a Koala mask who happens to work in Mizuno’s store. Just from the appearance of the body, it looks to be the body of Mokoyama Tsuyoshi from St. Pierre, the baker who Kazuma tied in the made for TV bakeoff. If that happens to be the case, things should be pretty interesting in this competition…